Mary Wollstonecraft Quotes
One man's life or death were but a small price to pay for the acquirement of the knowledge which I sought
I am not a person of opinions because I feel the counter arguments too strongly.
I saw no cause for their unhappiness, but I was deeply affected by it. If such lovely creatures were miserable, it was less strange that I, an imperfect and solitary being, should be wretched.
Polluted by crimes, and torn by the bitterest remorse, where can I find rest but in death?
Listen to me, Frankenstein. You accuse me of murder; and yet you would, with a satisfied conscience, destroy your own creature. Oh, praise the eternal justice of man!
The fallen angel becomes a malignant devil. Yet even that enemy of God and man had friends and associates in his desolation; I am alone.
Ennui, the demon, waited at the threshold of his noiseless refuge, and drove away the stirring hopes and enlivening expectations, which form the better part of life.
All judges had rather that ten innocent should suffer than that one guilty should escape.
If you will comply with my conditions, I will leave them and you at peace; but if you refuse, I will glut the maw of death, until it be satiated with the blood of your remaining friends.
I leave a sad and bitter world; and if you remember me, and think of me as of one unjustly condemned, I am resigned to the fate awaiting me.
Even the eternal skies weep, I thought; is there any shame then, that mortal man should spend himself in tears?
Truly disappointment is the guardian deity of human life; she sits at the threshold of unborn time, and marshals the events as they come forth.
the sentiment of immediate loss in some sort decayed, while that of utter, irremediable loneliness grew on me with time.
What but a pestilential vapour can hover over society when its chief director is only instructed in the invention of crimes, or the stupid routine of childish ceremonies?
There was a considerable difference between the ages of my parents, but this circumstance seemed to unite them only closer in bonds of devoted affection.
Invention, it must be humbly admitted, does not consist in creating out of void but out of chaos.
If your wish is to become really a man of science and not merely a petty experimentalist, I should advise you to apply to every branch of natural philosophy, including mathematics.
the companions of our childhood always possess a certain power over our minds which hardly any later friend can obtain.
My life, as it passes thus, was indeed hateful to me, and it was during sleep alone that I could taste joy. O blessed sleep!
Taught from their infancy that beauty is woman's sceptre, the mind shapes itself to the body, and roaming round its gilt cage, only seeks to adorn its prison.
For the first time she knew and loved the Spirit of good and beauty, an affinity to which affords the greatest bliss that our nature can receive.
She saw and marked the revolutions that had been, and the present seemed to her only a point of rest, from which time was to renew his flight.
Few, I believe, have had much affection for mankind, who did not first love their parents, their brothers, sisters, and even the domestic brutes, whom they first played with.
Nature in everything demands respect, and those who violate her laws seldom violate them with impunity.
Surely once in a life God will grant the earnest entreaty of a loving heart.
The agonies of remorse poison the luxury there is otherwise sometimes found in the excess of grief.
Those moral laws on which all human excellence is founded—a love of truth in ourselves, and a sincere sympathy with our fellow-creatures.
This advice, although good, was totally inapplicable to my case.
What is there in our nature that is for ever urging us on towards pain and misery?
The being who patiently endures injustice, and silently bears insults, will soon become unjust, or unable to discern right from wrong.
It is justice, not charity, that is wanting in the world!
Cursed, cursed creator! Why did I live? Why, in that instant, did I not extinguish the spark of existence which you had so wantonly bestowed?
Solitude and reflection are necessary to give to wishes the force of passions.
Even where the affections are not strongly moved by any superior excellence the companions of our childhood always possess a certain power over our minds which hardly any later friend can obtain.
Nothing contributes so much to tranquilize the mind as a steady purpose-a point on which the soul may fix its intellectual eye.
My imagination, unbidden, possessed and guided me, gifting the successive images that arose in my mind with a vivdness far beyond the usual bounds of reverie....
I seemed to have lost all soul or sensation but for this one pursuit.
I wished, as it were, to procrastinate all that related to my feelings of affection until the great object, which swallowed up every habit of my nature, should be completed.